Our Mutual Friend, Page 35

  Chapter 2

  A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT

  In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow window-blind ofPubsey and Co. was drawn down upon the day's work, Riah the Jew oncemore came forth into Saint Mary Axe. But this time he carried no bag,and was not bound on his master's affairs. He passed over London Bridge,and returned to the Middlesex shore by that of Westminster, and so, everwading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker.

  Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window by the lightof her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders that it mightlast the longer and waste the less when she was out--sitting waitingfor him in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musingsolitude in which she sat, and she came to the door to open it; aidingher steps with a little crutch-stick.

  'Good evening, godmother!' said Miss Jenny Wren.

  The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on.

  'Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?' asked Miss Jenny Wren.

  'Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear.'

  'Well!' exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. 'Now you ARE a clever old boy!If we gave prizes at this establishment (but we only keep blanks), youshould have the first silver medal, for taking me up so quick.' As shespake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyholeand put it in her pocket, and then bustlingly closed the door, and triedit as they both stood on the step. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe,she drew one hand through the old man's arm and prepared to ply hercrutch-stick with the other. But the key was an instrument of suchgigantic proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to carryit.

  'No, no, no! I'll carry it myself,' returned Miss Wren. 'I'm awfullylopsided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket it'll trim the ship. Tolet you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side, o'purpose.'

  With that they began their plodding through the fog.

  'Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,' resumed Miss Wren withgreat approbation, 'to understand me. But, you see, you ARE so like thefairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the restof people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape,just this moment, with some benevolent object. Boh!' cried Miss Jenny,putting her face close to the old man's. 'I can see your features,godmother, behind the beard.'

  'Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, Jenny?'

  'Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap this piece ofpavement--this dirty stone that my foot taps--it would start up a coachand six. I say! Let's believe so!'

  'With all my heart,' replied the good old man.

  'And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask youto be so kind as give my child a tap, and change him altogether. O mychild has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me nearlyout of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days. Has had thehorrors, too, and fancied that four copper-coloured men in red wanted tothrow him into a fiery furnace.'

  'But that's dangerous, Jenny.'

  'Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or less. Hemight'--here the little creature glanced back over her shoulder at thesky--'be setting the house on fire at this present moment. I don't knowwho would have a child, for my part! It's no use shaking him. I haveshaken him till I have made myself giddy. "Why don't you mind yourCommandments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy?" I said to himall the time. But he only whimpered and stared at me.'

  'What shall be changed, after him?' asked Riah in a compassionatelyplayful voice.

  'Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and getyou to set me right in the back and the legs. It's a little thing to youwith your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor weak achingme.'

  There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not theless touching for that.

  'And then?'

  'Yes, and then--YOU know, godmother. We'll both jump up into the coachand six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother, to ask you aserious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been broughtup by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had agood thing and lost it, or never to have had it?'

  'Explain, god-daughter.'

  'I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than Iused to feel before I knew her.' (Tears were in her eyes as she saidso.)

  'Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear,' said theJew,--'that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, hasfaded out of my own life--but the happiness was.'

  'Ah!' said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, and choppingthe exclamation with that sharp little hatchet of hers; 'then I tell youwhat change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had betterchange Is into Was and Was into Is, and keep them so.'

  'Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?' askedthe old man tenderly.

  'Right!' exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have changed mewiser, godmother.--Not,' she added with the quaint hitch of her chin andeyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful godmother to do that deed.'

  Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they traversedthe ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new ground likewise; for,when they had recrossed the Thames by way of London Bridge, they struckdown by the river and held their still foggier course that way.

  But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerablefriend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: 'Nowlook at 'em! All my work!'

  This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours ofthe rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going toballs, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going outwalking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to getmarried, for all the gay events of life.

  'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands.'Most elegant taste!'

  'Glad you like 'em,' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is,godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it'sthe hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were notbad and my legs queer.'

  He looked at her as not understanding what she said.

  'Bless you, godmother,' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town atall hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing,it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the greatladies that takes it out of me.'

  'How, the trying-on?' asked Riah.

  'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren. 'Lookhere. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, ora Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and Ilook about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, Isay "You'll do, my dear!" and I take particular notice of her, and runhome and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scuddingback again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again.Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature isstaring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much moreoften yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, "I musthollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;" and I am making aperfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Eveningparties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for afull view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriagesand the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night.However, there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into thehall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomypoked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say theythink I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but theylittle think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady BelindaWhitrose. I made her do double duty in one night. I said when she cameout of the carriage, "YOU'll do, my dear!" and I ran straight home andcut her out and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the menthat called the carriages.
Very bad night too. At last, "Lady BelindaWhitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!" And I made hertry on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated. That'sLady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for awax one, with her toes turned in.'

  When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Riah askedthe way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.Following the directions he received, they arrived, after two or threepuzzled stoppages for consideration, and some uncertain looking aboutthem, at the door of Miss Abbey Potterson's dominions. A peep throughthe glass portion of the door revealed to them the glories of the bar,and Miss Abbey herself seated in state on her snug throne, reading thenewspaper. To whom, with deference, they presented themselves.

  Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a suspendedexpression of countenance, as if she must finish the paragraph in handbefore undertaking any other business whatever, Miss Abbey demanded,with some slight asperity: 'Now then, what's for you?'

  'Could we see Miss Potterson?' asked the old man, uncovering his head.

  'You not only could, but you can and you do,' replied the hostess.

  'Might we speak with you, madam?'

  By this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of the smallfigure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer observation of which, MissAbbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked over the half-door ofthe bar. The crutch-stick seemed to entreat for its owner leave to comein and rest by the fire; so, Miss Abbey opened the half-door, and said,as though replying to the crutch-stick:

  'Yes, come in and rest by the fire.'

  'My name is Riah,' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and myavocation is in London city. This, my young companion--'

  'Stop a bit,' interposed Miss Wren. 'I'll give the lady my card.' Sheproduced it from her pocket with an air, after struggling with thegigantic door-key which had got upon the top of it and kept it down.Miss Abbey, with manifest tokens of astonishment, took the diminutivedocument, and found it to run concisely thus:--

  MISS JENNY WREN

  DOLLS' DRESSMAKER.

  Dolls attended at their own residences.

  'Lud!' exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped the card.

  'We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I, madam,' saidRiah, 'on behalf of Lizzie Hexam.'

  Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings of the dolls'dressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, and said: 'Lizzie Hexam isa very proud young woman.'

  'She would be so proud,' returned Riah, dexterously, 'to stand well inyour good opinion, that before she quitted London for--'

  'For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope?' asked Miss Potterson,as though supposing her to have emigrated.

  'For the country,' was the cautious answer,--'she made us promise tocome and show you a paper, which she left in our hands for that specialpurpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, who began to know herafter her departure from this neighbourhood. She has been for some timeliving with my young companion, and has been a helpful and a comfortablefriend to her. Much needed, madam,' he added, in a lower voice. 'Believeme; if you knew all, much needed.'

  'I can believe that,' said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance at thelittle creature.

  'And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temperthat never tires, and a touch that never hurts,' Miss Jenny struck in,flushed, 'she is proud. And if it's not, she is NOT.'

  Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank, was so far fromoffending that dread authority, as to elicit a gracious smile. 'You doright, child,' said Miss Abbey, 'to speak well of those who deserve wellof you.'

  'Right or wrong,' muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visible hitch ofher chin, 'I mean to do it, and you may make up your mind to THAT, oldlady.'

  'Here is the paper, madam,' said the Jew, delivering into MissPotterson's hands the original document drawn up by Rokesmith, andsigned by Riderhood. 'Will you please to read it?'

  'But first of all,' said Miss Abbey, '--did you ever taste shrub,child?'

  Miss Wren shook her head.

  'Should you like to?'

  'Should if it's good,' returned Miss Wren.

  'You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you with hotwater. Put your poor little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold night,and the fog clings so.' As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, herloosened bonnet dropped on the floor. 'Why, what lovely hair!' criedMiss Abbey. 'And enough to make wigs for all the dolls in the world.What a quantity!'

  'Call THAT a quantity?' returned Miss Wren. 'Poof! What do you say tothe rest of it?' As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden streamfell over herself and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground.Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckonedthe Jew towards her, as she reached down the shrub-bottle from itsniche, and whispered:

  'Child, or woman?'

  'Child in years,' was the answer; 'woman in self-reliance and trial.'

  'You are talking about Me, good people,' thought Miss Jenny, sitting inher golden bower, warming her feet. 'I can't hear what you say, but Iknow your tricks and your manners!'

  The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonizing with MissJenny's palate, a judicious amount was mixed by Miss Potterson's skilfulhands, whereof Riah too partook. After this preliminary, Miss Abbey readthe document; and, as often as she raised her eyebrows in so doing,the watchful Miss Jenny accompanied the action with an expressive andemphatic sip of the shrub and water.

  'As far as this goes,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had read itseveral times, and thought about it, 'it proves (what didn't much needproving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have my doubts whether heis not the villain who solely did the deed; but I have no expectation ofthose doubts ever being cleared up now. I believe I did Lizzie's fatherwrong, but never Lizzie's self; because when things were at the worst Itrusted her, had perfect confidence in her, and tried to persuade herto come to me for a refuge. I am very sorry to have done a man wrong,particularly when it can't be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie knowwhat I say; not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, afterall, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at the Porters, and afriend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind her, and sheknows what-like the home, and what-like the friend, is likely to turnout. I am generally short and sweet--or short and sour, according as itmay be and as opinions vary--' remarked Miss Abbey, 'and that's aboutall I have got to say, and enough too.'

  But before the shrub and water was sipped out, Miss Abbey bethoughtherself that she would like to keep a copy of the paper by her. 'It'snot long, sir,' said she to Riah, 'and perhaps you wouldn't mind justjotting it down.' The old man willingly put on his spectacles, and,standing at the little desk in the corner where Miss Abbey filed herreceipts and kept her sample phials (customers' scores were interdictedby the strict administration of the Porters), wrote out the copy ina fair round character. As he stood there, doing his methodicalpenmanship, his ancient scribelike figure intent upon the work, and thelittle dolls' dressmaker sitting in her golden bower before the fire,Miss Abbey had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rarefigures into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wakewith a nod next moment and find them gone.

  Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes andopening them again, still finding the figures there, when, dreamlike,a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she started up, and theyall three looked at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voicesand of the stir of feet; then all the windows were heard to be hastilythrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into the house fromthe river. A moment more, and Bob Gliddery came clattering along thepassage, with the noise of all the nails in his boots condensed intoevery separate nail.

  'What is it?' asked Miss Abbey.

  'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am,' answered Bob. 'There's ever somany people in the river.'


  'Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!' cried Miss Abbey. 'See that theboiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to the fire. Heat somestone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down stairs, anduse 'em.'

  While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob--whom sheseized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against the wall, as ageneral injunction to vigilance and presence of mind--and partly hailedthe kitchen with them--the company in the public room, jostling oneanother, rushed out to the causeway, and the outer noise increased.

  'Come and look,' said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three hurriedto the vacated public room, and passed by one of the windows into thewooden verandah overhanging the river.

  'Does anybody down there know what has happened?' demanded Miss Abbey,in her voice of authority.

  'It's a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried one blurred figure in the fog.

  'It always IS a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried another.

  'Them's her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking yonder,' criedanother.

  'She's a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes thefog and the noise worse, don't you see?' explained another.

  Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushingtumultuously to the water's edge. Some man fell in with a splash, andwas pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The drags were called for.A cry for the life-buoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible tomake out what was going on upon the river, for every boat that put offsculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat's length. Nothingwas clear but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproacheson all sides. She was the Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was theManslaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to betried for his life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with a relish;she mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired propertywith her funnels; she always was, and she always would be, wreakingdestruction upon somebody or something, after the manner of all herkind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts, uttered intones of universal hoarseness. All the while, the steamer's lights movedspectrally a very little, as she lay-to, waiting the upshot of whateveraccident had happened. Now, she began burning blue-lights. These made aluminous patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in thepatch--the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and moreexcited--shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, while voicesshouted: 'There!' 'There again!' 'A couple more strokes a-head!''Hurrah!' 'Look out!' 'Hold on!' 'Haul in!' and the like. Lastly, witha few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again,the wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights glidedsmoothly away in the direction of the sea.

  It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a considerabletime had been thus occupied. There was now as eager a set towards theshore beneath the house as there had been from it; and it was onlyon the first boat of the rush coming in that it was known what hadoccurred.

  'If that's Tom Tootle,' Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her mostcommanding tones, 'let him instantly come underneath here.'

  The submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd.

  'What is it, Tootle?' demanded Miss Abbey.

  'It's a foreign steamer, miss, run down a wherry.'

  'How many in the wherry?'

  'One man, Miss Abbey.'

  'Found?'

  'Yes. He's been under water a long time, Miss; but they've grappled upthe body.'

  'Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the house-door and standby it on the inside, and don't you open till I tell you. Any police downthere?'

  'Here, Miss Abbey,' was official rejoinder.

  'After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, will you? Andhelp Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out.'

  'All right, Miss Abbey.'

  The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah and MissJenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side of her, within thehalf-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork.

  'You two stand close here,' said Miss Abbey, 'and you'll come to nohurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by the door.'

  That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an extra and afinal tuck on his shoulders, obeyed.

  Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffle and talkwithout. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly blunt knocks or pokes at thedoor, as if the dead man arriving on his back were striking at it withthe soles of his motionless feet.

  'That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two they arecarrying,' said Miss Abbey, with experienced ear. 'Open, you Bob!'

  Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush. Stoppage of rush.Door shut. Baffled boots from the vexed souls of disappointed outsiders.

  'Come on, men!' said Miss Abbey; for so potent was she with her subjectsthat even then the bearers awaited her permission. 'First floor.'

  The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took up theburden they had set down, as to carry that low. The recumbent figure, inpassing, lay hardly as high as the half door.

  Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. 'Why, good God!' said she,turning to her two companions, 'that's the very man who made thedeclaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!'